Nokia silences the Curse of Silence

Whew. About a month ago, a German group by the name of Chaos Computer Club exposed a vulnerability in Nokia’s S60 handsets that allowed attackers to remotely disable messaging by simply sending a string of specifically formatted SMS messages. Dubbed the Curse of Silence, Chaos Computer Club responsibly contacted Nokia and carriers long before releasing details to the public and while some carriers responded immediately, Nokia apparently hung back for a while as it prepared a fix. S60 users whose carriers weren’t among the responsible few that addressed the issue need not worry as Nokia as finally released a cleanup tool, free of charge of course, that will repair any device affected by the exploit. While a preventative solution would have been preferable, something is better than nothing and the fix is confirmed to work. If you found yourself the victim of a CoS attack hit the read link, follow the simple instructions and you should be back in action in no time.